Community Chest Grant Scheme Open For 2017/18

Northumberland County Council's Community Chest grant scheme is now open for applications for 2017/2018. One off grants of up to £60,000 for county wide projects, £5,000 for local area projects and a new £200 young persons grant for achieving a particular ambition are available.

Applications will be decided by a Grant Panel established by each of the five new Local Area Councils and the first deadline for applications is Friday 29th September.

The aim of the Community Chest Scheme is to support community groups and organisations to deliver activities which contribute to achieving the Council’s ambition for Northumberland. In addition, a new small grant scheme, Help For You, has been included specifically to help young people under 18 to achieve an ambition (see below).The fund will support one-off initiatives that are:

• seen as valuable to the area
• are not able to secure mainstream funding from the council or other sources

They do this by giving one-off grants of up to £5,000, but not exceeding 75% of the actual costs, i.e. you will need to find at least 25% from your own or other sources.You are advised to read the guidelines carefully before applying.

To help the council decide between different applications, there are higher and lower priorities for the scheme. Higher priority will be given to:

• Projects submitted by small community groups, defined as having an income of less than £10,000 per year and no paid staff
• Initiatives that will help community groups to become sustainable in the longer term
• Groups who have not received a grant from the community chest in the past

Lower priority will be given to groups who have received a community chest grant in the past two years and those that apply for projects similar to previous years. If your group or organisation does not meet the priorities, then an application can still be made but is less likely to be successful. 

If your project seeks to benefit the County as a whole, then it may be considered as a Countywide project, for which £60,000 per annum is set aside. Such projects are considered by a separate panel of Area Chairs that meets more regularly. Although the maximum grant remains 75% of the actual costs, the upper cap of £5,000 does not apply.

Help For You 

Grants of up to £200 are available for young people aged under 18 to support them in pursuing a particular ambition. A maximum of £2,000 has been ring-fenced for each local area council.

For further information visit the Northumberland County Council website or contact: 

Community Regeneration Team
Ecomony and Inclusion Policy Team
Planning and Economy Directorate
Northumberland County Council
County Hall
Morpeth
NE61 2EF